Acquirement

An acquirement is a specific way of generating an item in Crawl that, unlike most item generation, is based in large part on your character's abilities and possessions. It is guaranteed to be usable or equippable. The item is biased towards being both good and useful to your character, but your luck may still vary. You may be given an item that allows you to win the game, or you may be given useless junk.

Contents

Sources

There are only a few sources of acquirements. Most are fairly rare, and those that are more common tend to be not as good. The sources are:

Reading a scroll of acquirement gives the player an acquirement, with a choice of item type. These are quite rare and valuable.

Three deities can give out acquirements:

Okawaru gives out weapon, armour, and missile acquirements on a fairly regular basis at high piety. His weapons are biased toward worse item types than those created by other sources.

Trog gives out weapons and missiles at high piety, similar to Okawaru. He is more likely to offer weapons with the antimagic brand. Similar to Okawaru, his items are biased towards having slightly worse base types than other sources of acquirements.

Xom may occasionally give you acquirements, among all the other junk he throws at you.

Items in vaults may be created using acquirement code; the most notable example of this would be items in treasure troves. As these items are placed when the trove is created, the player obviously cannot choose their type, but they generally are biased toward your predominant skills. Not all excellent items found in vaults are necessarily acquirements, though.

General Mechanics

Acquirements are affected by a number of different factors:

They are biased towards items that match your skills. For instance, a character who has heavily invested in Maces & Flails is fairly likely to receive a weapon in that category should they opt for a weapon acquirement. Similarly, a conjurer who uses mainly Fire Magic will likely find themselves receiving a spellbook with more spells from that school should they choose a spellbook acquirement.

They are biased against items that you have already seen, the logic there being that if you have seen it, you're probably either using it or have decided it isn't useful. This usually includes items in shops, but those which are far too expensive for your character to buy at present are excluded from being "seen."

The item is guaranteed to be usable. This means that you will be able to equip it, and using it will not incur penance with your current deity. Note that these guarantees are fairly minimal: acquirement may well give your Armour-based hill orc a robe (although it will be biased against doing so if you have invested in the Armour skill).

The item will not be cursed (although it may curse itself upon being equipped, if it possesses that particular ego). Worshipers of Ashenzari will always receive cursed items.

Note that acquirements are not directly affected by your current depth or location. However, the bias against items you have already seen means that later acquirements do tend to give out rarer items, as the common ones have already been seen. This can often produce better acquirements later on, although how much better depends on the item type asked for, and saving an acquirement for later runs the risk of you dying due to poor equipment before you get the chance.

Specific acquirement types

You receive a branded, randart, or even possibly unrandart melee or ranged weapon that usually belongs to the weapon schools you are skilled in. It helps if you are skilled only with weapons that you really want to use in combat.

You receive a good or randart piece of armour or shield, with a small chance of an unrandart. The creation process does consider your skills and even mutations, but the item is not guaranteed to be useful for you. However, it will always be one that you are capable of wearing.

You receive a random piece of jewellery, sometimes a randart. The game will try to give you something you have not identified yet, but there is no guarantee. The chance for a randart is flat and does not depend on the amount of jewellery you have identified.

You receive a randart spell book or manual. Melee/ranged combat players are less likely to receive spellbooks. Worshipers of Trog will always receive a manual, but never one that trains magic. Randart spellbooks will tend to include spells from the player's most knowledgeable spell school.

You receive a large amount of gold, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. This can help you go on a shopping spree in a bazaar, obtain an expensive randart in a shop for a treasure trove, or provide you with some opportunities to use Gozag's abilities.